Hands.
Hands brushing hands…brushing skin…sliding through his hair…caressing his lips…
Hands seeking every inch of him that responded…turning the touches into delicious torture as his body arced with desire.
"Ngh."
Gren sat up, and winced at the knot in his back, just above the kidneys.
He remembered that knot. He was home, and sprawled on the couch. The couch with the lump that always left his back in agony.
"I need a new couch."
When did I get here?
The saxophone nestled into the nearby armchair told him. His jacket draped across the hard black vinyl in dark, nested folds. He'd given up on searching for Vicious…how long ago?
The clock on the microwave said three hours. Enough for a sleep and a dream?
Enough to pass out after covering practically the whole city. Were you a figment of my imagination?
"No. You were there. I saw you. I felt you."
The saxophone, the jacket, and the clock on the microwave silently agreed. A pair of slender white hands linked above his head as he stretched. His spine popped audibly. He grimaced.
"Ugh."
His eyes felt gritty, and as Gren absently drew his knuckles across them, he frowned in confusion. His cheeks were puffy, and sticky with drying salt. I wasn't crying, was I?
"I need a shower."
Raven hair bobbed around his shoulders as the musician struggled to his feet and moved to the bathroom. He stripped to the skin with the boneless grace of a cat, and doused his head with an icy jet of water to clear it, before opening the hot water tap to full blast. The spray pounded on his chest. He tilted his head back, allowing himself to be lost in the humid cloud of steam.
What am I going to do…? It's been six months since I saw him last…and...it seems like it's been even longer. Christ, I waited for so many years for the chance to finally face him. Gren dropped his face into his hands; buried the fingertips in his hair. And I didn't finish it. Just walked out. Over for all, my ass. I ran.
Hot anger coursed through him, hotter than the silken cords of water on his skin. I had a very good reason to be pissed at him. That bastard's been running my life since he put me in prison. No, he was controlling me even before that.
Just as quickly, the feeling dissipated. And I let him. Oh, God, I wanted to be controlled…wanted someone to make the decisions for me…! He offered to take care of me, and I let him.
"Oh, he took care of me, all right." The words came out with more acid than Gren expected. Surprised, he sagged against the shower wall and watched the ripples of water circling the drain.
But he did take care of me. In fact…I was safer with him than I was anywhere else…with anyone else.
-
Lost in a legendary Titan sandstorm. Somehow, he'd gotten separated from the rest of the troop, but that wasn't too hard to contemplate, as visibility dropped to zero any further than a bodylength away. Wind tore at his clothes and snatched the hood protecting his face. Sand filled his mouth whenever he tried to gasp for breath; stung his eyes if he dared open them, and hammered at his eyelids if he dared not. Death couldn't be far away. Damn. He hadn't wanted to die like this. Not in this hellhole. Not alone.
A bodylength away, a broad-shouldered shadow ghosted out of the yellow-brown miasma like a hell-born angel of mercy.
They stared groggily at each other for a long moment. "Eckener?" The low, familiar voice registered concern. When Gren somehow managed to nod, a powerful arm and the greater part of a thick cloak dropped over his shoulders. Pulled him to safety. There was an abandoned trench nearby – whether it belonged to the enemy or to his comrades, at this point, Gren was beyond caring. They dropped into the crevice, and huddled together against the wall as the storm raged and howled overhead.
Vicious explained his appearance in as few words as possible. His battalion was still out there, somewhere. He'd told them not to move the moment the storm really whipped up – warned them that if they separated, everyone would die. They didn't listen to him; after all, he wasn't their captain. Gren could almost touch the aura of helpless anger as he described their foolhardy disappearance into the blowing sand.
The trench belonged to their side. It was the one Vicious had warned them not to leave. Gren's hand brushed the other man's hip, and felt a cord of coarse fiber beneath his fingers. A rope, tied to the other soldier's waist, and secured to a bayonet piercing the trench wall above their heads.
For hours afterward, Vicious kept going out in the hopes of finding stragglers. Each time, he returned alone, more and more morose as the situation worsened. Finally, the younger of the two protested, dust obscuring the blue-black of his hair.
"You can't do this anymore. You'll kill yourself!"
"I have to." But the sand-coated, gritty words held defeat.
"They aren't out there! You've gone as far as the rope will let—"
Vicious fumbled with the rope around his waist, numb fingers tearing fruitlessly at the knot. Gren stared at him in disbelief.
"...you can't be serious!"
"Damnit, do you think I can just sit here and know they're dying?!" Vicious snarled, more at the knot than the other soldier.
"Is it worth killing yourself to convince yourself that there's nothing you can do?!" An edge of hysteria. If Vicious left and never came back, he'd be completely alone in this sandpit. The taller man shook his silver mane, transfigured dun by the storm.
"My life isn't worth anything, Eckener. Especially when there might be a chance—"
"You're delusional. Those soldiers didn't have a chance in hell when they left this trench!"
"But I found you."
"Yes. And now I'm going to return the favor and keep you here so I don't have to go find you later. Because if you leave, I'm going after you."
-
Twitching slightly, Gren remembered the frank shock registering in that pair of ice-blue eyes at his words. He turned the water off, suddenly uncomfortable in the fierce heat.
-
"I told you. My life isn't worth anything."
"You're wrong!"
"How the hell would you know."
-
Bare feet hit the terry bathmat as Gren reached for a towel. He rubbed his hair vigorously, and started on his neck. The movement slowed, transmuting into a sensual touch as the musician tipped his head to the side, remembering.
-
"Life is precious, Vicious. Even yours. Especially yours."
"…How…?"
"There's something about you." Gren's voice dropped, as though trying to hide his words in the howl of the gales overhead. "Something powerful. Honorable. Noble. Why else would you risk your life for your comrades?"
"I…" He didn't have a canned answer for that one. Good. Gren pushed him against the sand-worn wall, wondering distantly how they'd risen to their feet without either man's notice.
"Look," Gren said forcefully, and to his surprise, Vicious obeyed, "I don't care what you tell me. You could tie me up with that rope, and I'd still go after you. You rescued me, and so you're not going off to die. Not without me." And with that, the smaller man wrapped his arms around Vicious' waist and leaned hard against his chest, in a vain attempt to use his body mass to immobilize the other.
A shuddering sigh made the flesh and cloth beneath Gren's cheek tremble. He looked up. Caught Vicious looking at him with an unreadable expression. Smiled.
And found himself pressed against the slick clay as the other warrior turned the tables on him. Vicious cupped his cheek in one broad, dirt-smeared palm, and stroked the dust away from his lips with the tip of his thumb. He stopped, the deceptively cold blue eyes searching Gren's for any sign of hesitation.
He never found it. Vicious leaned closer, and an electric shock coursed through both bodies as their lips touched. Gren's hands slid up to twine around his neck, and as the older soldier's arms found a home encircling the musician's waist, the corner of Gren's mouth quirked.
One hell of a way to keep the sand out of my teeth…
-
Even now, the memory drew sensations from the Titan veteran's mind that he never expected to feel again. It wasn't the touch…oh, he'd had that since Vicious, willing or unwilling. The difference was that below the surface, Gren had trusted the silver-haired soldier, and wholeheartedly believed that there was a bright soul behind those steely eyes.
He wasn't just a willing body.
Not just in desperate need of comfort.
He was a friend.
A comrade.
The towel hit the bathroom floor with a whispered thud. Spike said the Syndicate was moving again. That could mean only one thing, and he intended to find out.
-
"This isn't about you anymore, Vicious." Gren tore at the restraining hand, "It's about what it takes to be free of this, for all."
Low voice. Lower than ever. As if he was terribly, terribly frightened of what he had to say next.
"I don't want to be free of this, for all."
-
Gren realized with a guilty start how hard it must have been for Vicious to admit that. But he'd been so wrapped up in himself…so busy feeling vindictive…
But then again, hadn't Vicious said himself that he didn't need comrades? It may have been years ago, but the human heart didn't suddenly fit in a new mold…
…did it?
Who was the real person? The man from long ago…or the man who had pulled him back from death, six months gone?
And now that I think about it, I really didn't want to die. I wanted to be reborn.
And if they were the same person, maybe…
Maybe Vicious really did need comrades. Gren flicked his hair in agitation, suddenly feeling sympathetic to the horses in the gritty old Western flicks he'd seen on decrepit reruns. The horses—galloping off after someone slapped their rumps.
Is that what he did? Gave me a Vicious-style slap on the rump to push me away? Because he…knew…the music box!
Swathed in his ratty terry robe, Gren padded over to the electric keyboard, where a clockwork box rested on the keys. Fingers trembling only slightly, Gren retrieved it and held it aloft, warming the cool metal with his touch. The original. He'd given Vicious a replica, so to speak. The music was as much a part of him as his hands; as the wide, troubled blue eyes regarding the softly glinting surface.
If Vicious indeed had cared about him, the box and the secret it used to hold made a case to the contrary that was almost impossible to refute. He needed answers.
I've wasted so much time. I had a chance then, and I wasted it…
It won't happen again!
He threw on the first things that came to hand, tossed his coat over his arms and dashed out into the hall. The Red Dragon Syndicate. That's where Vicious would be.
That's where I'll find the answer.